The terrible newspaper
headline is here beside me on the bed. As if it happened to someone else,
not me, not my family, not my son.

WOMAN KILLED AFTER
DECADE OF

RELENTLESS HARASSMENT

"Obsessive crush," the
newspaper says. "Love obsession" … "murdered in brutal attack" … "plotted
his quarry in the dark bedroom with a flashlight taped to the gun barrel" …
"stabbed her and her husband, repeatedly, shot them eighteen times with a
.22 rifle."

The husband, badly
injured, told police my son said, "I love you, Melanie," over and over as he
killed her. "I love you. I love you, Melanie, love you --"

▼▪▲

I have to keep thinking.
The police will be coming here. Have to take care of business. I’ve been to
the garage, got all of his chemicals, dumped them into the toilet. It took a
long, dangerous time. Dump, flush. Dump, flush. Some caught on fire when
they hit the water.

I found his secret
storage chest, double-locked, buried behind storage boxes. Pried it open.
Found the letters the girl had written to him. Found the death list, the
journal in which he listed observations about each person to be killed, what
hours they were home, which windows were left open.

His journals. Three sets.
The real one in that chest. Middle secrets in another journal hidden under
his mattress on the floor, next to my bed. My son.

The least-cruel journal
lay innocently on his bed. Abstract theories linking everything in the
physical universe and universe of thought. Mathematical equations.

Went to the hills this morning,
the most innocent journal read.

Now I wonder squeamishly
-- one night not long before, he was eager for me to accompany him, drive
there in the car, high up in the hills to the eight expensive new houses
recently burned down all at once by an arsonist.

We got out, walked
gingerly down amidst the charred ruins.

"Look!" my son said
excitedly, big grin. He held up a black, charred piece of wood. Formerly a
2" x 10" floor joist, I guess.

At the time I was uneasy.
Now I am sick to my stomach.

And the rifle. He wanted
me to practice target shooting with him, again up in the hills, shooting tin
cans with the .22 rifle. Where did he get it?

"Garage sale," he
might've said. I don't remember. I want to forget everything.

The detective called and
told me about the murder. Warned me to lock the doors.

Four newspapers called
within hours.

"Don't you want us to
hear his side of it?" they asked, each of them, one by one. "And
your side?"

I told them nothing.

He wouldn't let go of the
girl. Hounded her for ten years, since they were both 12, there at that
group "home" for maladjusted children. Where his mother and her husband sent
him.

Hounded her, tracked her
down all over the country, harassed her, clung to her, wrote a song to her,
gave her all of his pitiful earnings, wanted only to see her now and
then, even after she was married, had a baby. Stayed outside their place
night after night just to catch a glimpse of her, coming and going. Gave her
money, all his money. Then she said "no". No more. Stay away.

Killed her.

He asked me for money the
night of the murder. I had borrowed two hundred dollars from him six weeks
before, because my wife was not working and was draining me for ten bucks a
day for cigarettes, booze, and so forth. (She's gone now, again. On the road
somewhere. The divorce finally came through, all done, clear. And she got
close to $19,000 because her father died.) So he asked me for money the
night of the murder. Three nights ago.

I didn't have any cash on
me. I gave him all my loose change, all I had in the drawer. Quarters,
dimes, nickels, pennies. Maybe six or seven dollars’ worth.

He was disappointed.
Nervous, depressed.

"I'm sorry," I said. "All
I've got."

▼▪▲

Her funeral may have been
today. Yesterday, I called the funeral home nearby to see what the cost of
cremation for him will be. So long I hoped. Now, no way out for him. They'll
kill him. Or he'll kill himself. After killing all those people on the list.
And maybe us. My son.

He called Friday night.
Cool killer.

"Did you hear about it?"

Brief, on, off. I can't
say any more about that. It sounded like he was calling from a sound-proof
box. Spooky quiet, almost as though he were calling from beneath a blanket.

He has a key, so we've
put a chain on the door. But he could easily break the bracket inside the
door with a screwdriver. But the dog will whimper, give us a few
seconds to call the police. They say they're patrolling close by, would be
here within thirty seconds.

Three of us here. My
karate son has his BB target gun by his bed, and he gave me the other
rapid-fire BB gun. My little boy, ten, from the second marriage, stays in my
room now.

The detective sergeant
has all the names on the list. One of the names is the supervisor at Jack in
the Box who fired him. The heads of the group home, the one ten years ago,
and the one where she stayed later, where they wouldn't let him see her --
they're all hiding out now, the sergeant said, living elsewhere while this
goes on. Seven names on the list.

His half-sister is hiding
with her grandma.

The guy who once
kidnapped my daughter is on the list. The kidnapping was years ago. She’s
mostly over that. Now this.

"I love you, Dad," my
daughter says at the end of each talk on the phone. Of us all, she is most
shaken.

“Terrible burden on
you,” my mother said yesterday on the phone. Yes, mother.

Karate boy -- man, 19 --
is suffering silently.

Just a month ago, my
oldest son, murderer now, on the loose, stalking -- he and my older children
all took me to the movie, "On Golden Pond," to celebrate my birthday. At the
end of the movie, my daughter saw my attempt to control my tears, hugged me
for several seconds.

In all our pictures, my
oldest son never smiles. Always the sullen, hard look. Now that seems less
unusual.

We’re all very
frightened.

"Will he come here?" my
little one asks.

"I don't know," I tell
him. "I don't think so. Anyway, he likes us."

A policeman may read
these notes soon. All of us here dead. He may wish to kill not only himself
now, but his history.

He may use his high IQ,
genius level they said, to --

"I believe he's trying to
set up a suicide, have us kill him," the detective sergeant said. My son had
called them, taunted them, said he was coming to the murdered girl's
funeral. Was coming to Kaiser Hospital to finish off her half-dead husband.
He spared the baby that night--

▼▪▲

Four nights since the
murder. However friendly he was to us, each of us, we are afraid.

"Getting the people on
the list," the detective sergeant said on the phone, "will be anti-climatic
to him, I think. He started at the end, killing her."

"I don't know," I told
the sergeant.

"Anything," the sergeant
said, "anything you could tell us might help."

"Yes -- I'll tell you," I
could've said. "He's been persecuted by the world, he thinks, since he was
three months old. Has a completely twisted view of everything. Everyone in
power is evil, men are evil -- women are victims, innocent, as he is. Life
is terrible, meaningless.

"He is somewhat autistic,
somewhat schizophrenic, one in 10,000 for brightness -- what in the fuck do
you want to know? He's my son. I love him. He's innocent, for
Christ's sake. All he wanted was love. Love from one person -- to
make up for --"

▼▪▲

It's the waiting that
gets us. The longer he waits, the deadlier he is. Only one murder separates
any of us from letting loose to break all taboos. We have to consider him
crazy, capable of anything.

▼▪▲

Now the worst has
happened. I write it down to keep from dying. I can't stand any more of
this.

Please, Jesus. No more.

Two hours ago, less -- I
haven't told his brothers yet.

"Is there anything you
want to say?" he asked me on the phone. Third call. The last, I guess.

He told me he was going
to kill himself.

"Is there anything you
want to say?" he asked.

My head spun with terror,
anguish. I groped for something. "We all love you," I said. "We understand.
We love you."

And then I said something
so weird it must be true. "You've been real good to us." My voice broke. "We
love you."

"Goodbye," he said.

I sat there, shaking. My
son, my son. And a cruel part of my mind knew what I had to do next.

I called the detective
sergeant. He has been kind, patient. I had to warn him.

"It sounded like the
airport," I told him, trying to keep clear enough to finish. "I'm afraid
he's at the airport. It's terrible to think of, but you better check. He's
made bombs before. He could be getting on a plane."

▼▪▲

"I'm sorry I have to tell
you," the detective sergeant said three days later.

It was April Fool’s Day
when my son killed the girl. Ten days later, Easter Sunday, sunrise, my son
killed himself. Jumped thirty-six stories from a tall, stark building. Was
"John Doe" for three days until they matched his fingerprints with those of
the one-million-dollar murder warrant suspect.

Cab driver across the
street heard the scream, looked up, heard the body hit the pavement.

The note in his pocket,
said:

I want to be

cremated. I want

to be put as close

to Melanie as

possible.

▼▪▲

My first-born, my dear
little son, was sent away to the group home by his mother and stepfather.
Twelve years old.

I drove 170 miles often
to see him. He did well at first. He fell in love, first love, puppy love,
final time, with the girl there. Melanie. Fell in love forever,
compulsively, never changing for ten years, until he killed her.

Enrolled him at Cal
Berkeley. No high school credit. Scored extremely high on SAT, so they let
him in.

Got him a studio
apartment near campus. Everything great. Then Melanie wrote him several
letters, embroidered a pillowcase for him -- in the chest now. Went up to
visit her. Group leaders wouldn’t let him in.

Two days later: "The
police called me!" his mother screamed in agony, blamed me. "He's done
it again."

Thirty-thousand dollar
fire. On campus.

▼▪▲

"He punctured their
basketball," the prison guard/counselor told me in disgust when I
visited three months later. The other inmates didn't like that.

The prison authorities
now sent my son to the mental institution at Napa. "Paranoid schizophrenic,"
the psychiatrist said. They gave him strong drugs that he vomited up when
out of their sight.

I visited him often at
Napa. There were drugged men sitting listlessly or walking aimlessly in a
stupor. Talking to unknown listeners.

▼▪▲

He escaped. Came home. I
was deathly afraid the authorities would come after him. They didn't. They
didn't even call. Nobody wanted him.

My son slept in my room
on a mattress on the floor. Our dog, Poochie, a voiceless Basenji, slept
with him. My second wife, alcoholic, left -- for good, this time.

My son had long hair,
never bathed. I have one of his shirts, unwashed, from those days. It is in
a red suitcase.

"What if you die and your
children open it?" a friend warns me.

My children will have to
handle it. The death list. The brilliant journals.

He took Poochie, his
beloved dog, to the veterinarian college upstate to try to save her life.
She died.

▼▪▲

Trying to be tough,
people wondering why I don't break down. On the morning after the detective
told me my boy was dead, I went down to buy the papers. Suddenly, going
there, my throat ached, tears streamed. "My little boy! My little boy!"
Holding hard onto the steering wheel.

SUICIDE ENDS HUNT FOR
“LOVE KILLER”

At work, people were very
kind. I handled it as well as I could.

Picked up the ashes at
the funeral home. They validated my parking ticket. Warned me the ashes were
heavy. About eight pounds.

Back at the car, very
slowly, I removed the lid from the round, gold cardboard box. Bone chips in
a plastic bag. Odor, I guess. Remembered my dead boy's chemical experiments.
Bone chips, the size of a bean or so. Clean. Fibrous.

Know now why
professionals are needed for funerals.

Broke down again, trying
to drive home. Gasping, holding onto the steering wheel, an anchor. Bawling,
sniveling, drowning like any six-year-old out of control, as children and
cowards and women cry.

▼▪▲

My son's bed next to me
on the floor, his clothes, papers are all untouched. A comfort. As long as
they are there he is alive. I can touch easily where my son touched a few
days ago. He is there.

▼▪▲

Nothing left to do but
bury the ashes. Say goodbye. My 19-year-old son, normally not compulsive,
was determined we would bury his brother's ashes at sunrise. We started for
the lake at 4:15 a.m. I remembered that was the time of day he murdered the
girl. Strange.

We got there shortly
before sunrise. We walked over a little dam, carrying a shovel, flowers, the
golden box of ashes, letters each of us had written to my dead boy.

We found a spot on the
side of the hill overlooking the lake. Birds were waking up, sound of
meadowlarks, silent lake, tall trees, the same rope suspended from a tree
the dead boy and I used years ago to swing out and drop into the water.

Dug a grave between two
huge boulders. My daughter made a nest of the flowers. She poured in the
ashes, bone fragments. We read silently the letters we had written to our
dead son and brother. We cried, clutching each other. My ten-year-old son
was uneasy, watching us crying.

My daughter put the
letters in the grave. I put the dirt back in. We put small stones, then
large stones on top. My son used a stone to carve the initials of his
brother on one boulder, those of the dead girlfriend on the other. The sun
came over the hills.

We went away almost
happy. We had said goodbye the way he would have wanted. We went into town
and had a large breakfast. We were even smiling.

▼▪▲

After breakfast, we drove
back to the city. We found the building. We took the elevator to the 36th
floor. We should have gone to the suicide place before the burial, but in
real life things can happen backwards.

On the 36th floor I noted
the blinding effect of the sun upon the rain pools on the acres of rooftops
below. Saw the cross my boy saw atop the church far below.

My children and I went
back down the elevator to the street. My daughter placed a rose on the
pavement in front of the hotel. She believed she could see a stain there.

My children and I left
the scene, looking back once. I twisted in my pocket the bent key that was found
on my son's body.

"Goodbye," my daughter
said to her brother.

Goodbye.

▼▪▲

They approached me
gingerly, over the telephone. The counselors, group-home heads,
psychologists, the psychotherapist -- the seven on my son's death list.

"Could you meet with us?
I know what a terrible time this is for you. But it would help. To tell what
you know. Why we failed."

▼▪▲

I met them at 2 p.m. in a
hotel on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.

"Can you help us
understand?" the group asked me. They felt my pain, they were gentle, but
they didn't understand at all. They had been under police protection,
terrified for days after I gave my son’s hit list to the detective.

I was a cold fish,
looking at them. They came to me for help? What else did they want?
My son, dead.

"Do you want to know why
your magic doesn't work, assholes? Have you lost confidence in yourselves?
Are any of you within 20 I.Q. points of my dead son?"

But I didn't tell them
that. Felt sorry for the miserable bastards.

"You're not to blame," I
told them generously, damning their souls. "You tried to help him, everyone
did."

They actually relaxed. I
saw it in their bodies. They should have been comforting me. Not me,
them.

"I'm not to blame
either," I said, calm as a judge. "Or his mother. Nobody is to blame."

Nobody. Nobody.

▼▪▲

My daughter has saved me,
these last days. And my brave 19-year-old son has saved me. My 10-year-old
has helped by keeping me busy.

The four of us have had
three meals together. Once here at home, once at an Italian restaurant, and
this morning at the pancake house across the bridge, near where my daughter
lives.

Death sniped at me
directly this morning, daring me to face it directly. I sat there with my
surviving children, and we ate pancakes, eggs, and bacon. I drank too much
coffee.

I changed from one moment
to the next. Guiding the conversation back to my dead son, remembering his
joys, idiosyncrasies, escapades, naughty sense of humor -- I came suddenly
to the drop-off of black hopelessness, my voice cracking like a child's.

My daughter's face was
anxious.

"It's such a nice day,"
she said. "Stop off on the way home. At a park somewhere. Lie in the sun.
Lie on the grass in the sun."

She and her brother were
going off to her mother's relatives. To comfort and be comforted.

▼▪▲

My daughter had a lovely
dream the night my son died. We think the dream could have occurred at the
exact time he jumped, because people dream more at that time, sunrise, than
any other time.

In my daughter's dream,
she was looking down and saw my son below. His eyes were strange. He looked
sad, lost, tortured.

She beckoned for him to
come up.

He came up to where she
was and suddenly he was transformed. She had never seen him happy like that
before. The full intelligence of his eyes was at last free, and all his
potential was released. He was radiant and at peace.

Now I am at peace also.
The tears well up in my eyes. My throat hurts. I love my dear dead son so
much. I believe somehow that he has triumphed, that in his Easter sunrise
leap he arose from the crumpled body to join his sweetheart somewhere,
somehow.

Today, as the final
measure of my devotion to him, I believe.

But tomorrow, the
anguish will return. My son dies hard, so hard. How many times must I bury
him?

Files marked
with an asterisk can be downloaded in an Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF
file. To download it, right-click the "Download PDF" link.
In the pop-up menu that appears, select Save Target As, (or Save
File As)and then save
the document to a folder on your own computer, where you can open it and
read it or print it at your leisure. Adobe Acrobat Reader software is
free and can be obtained here: